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The Jesuit Athanasius Kircher deposits his idea "Musurgia Mirifica" according to which it would be possible to compose music without knowing it.
Ci hi is athanasius kircher and what is "Musurgia mirifica"?
Athanasius Kircher was born in 1602 in Geisa a small Turingia town.
At the age of sixteen, he joined the Jesuit order by attending the College of Fulda. His studies range from philosophy to mathematics, but the most significant thing is his knowledge in the music field. There are many years spent experimenting and looking for, building innovative musical instruments and with passion with the beauty of acoustic sounds.
His great musical work Musurgia Universalis , written in 1650, is still a cornerstone of literature relating to the theory of affections.
Composed of ten books divided into two tomes has encyclopedic proportions, about 2300 pages.
It should be noted that in this work the eighth book contains one of the most significant and mysterious discoveries of the Jesuit or "Musurgia Mirifica" a singular example of musical science of the Baroque age where its theory emerges according to which it would be possible to compose without knowing the music.
This technique according to Athanasius Kircher, can only be applied for vocal compositions, where the composer starting from a poetic text and implementing a series of more or less obliged operations, can come to obtain a finished song.
Below is the list of the ten universal Musurgia tomes.
Book I - Sound and voice
book II - Origin of music
Book III - The Harmonic Science Volume 1
Book IV - The Harmonic Science Volume 2
Book V - Theory of composition
Book VI - Musical instruments
Book VII - Theory of affections
Book VIII - Art to forge music
Book IX - Effects of music on people
Book X - Conception of the harmony of spheres
It would take many pages to describe this great artist, so we limit ourselves to link below a collection of articles that describe his artistic - scientific path in detail.
Bibliography:
Athanasius Kircher's "Musurgia Universalis". Content, sources,
athanasius terminology and alchemy. Texts chosen and commented
Weblink:
Athanasius Kircher, the Musitemica Ark and various sound devices
The musical rhetoric
Wikipedia Athanasius Kircher
Article:
Athanasius Kircher, Musurgia Universalis (Rome, 1650): The Secation on Musical Instruments
Read also the article: singing teacher: ten points to follow
